Evacuee

I was born in Palmers Green London N13 on the 17th September 1938. My father John(Jack)Dilworth was a Civil Servant working for the Admiralty at Admiralty Arch off Trafalgar Square.My mother Joan and father having moved to London some years before the out break of war from Ormskirk,Lancashire.
To this day I have never been able find out exactly what my father's work entailed, other than he had to sign the official secrets act.The only information I was ever able to glean from him during his life-time was that he was responsible for recording the position of mines laid in the English Channel to protect our coast line from marauding German E-Boats. Apparently a Shackleton Aircraft would drop three mines in the channel and it was his job to accurately plot their positions for the protection of our own naval fleet. I do have my suspicions that during his war service he was involved in other work of a secret nature.
Anyhow due to the London blitz the Admiralty was relocated to Bath and my mother and I went with him as all children had to evacuate the capital.
We were housed in a top floor flat in Sydney Place.
My father working in what was the Empire Hotel in the city centre.
Not long afterwards the Luftwaffa started bombing Bristol and Bath and this is when I started having vivid memories of the war. I suppose I would have been about 41/2 yrs old at this time.
Being located in the top floor flat one could see the city limits in the direction of Bristol and prior to any air raid you could see the red glow in the night sky as Bristol took a pounding. The siren would sound and I remember having to race down several stair cases with my mother to reach the communal air raid shelter located in the park opposite.
The following morning we would emerge, often to be confronted with a rubble strewn street. We were the lucky ones as our flat remained in tact.
I hardly ever saw my father as he was always working, but as the raids intensified he insisted that we left Bath to seek refuge with relatives and family in Ormskirk. My recollections of the war from then on deminished except that on the train journey north the train had to stop just outside Mangotsfield due to an air raid.
Not much happened in Ormskirk except that we had to take shelter when there was a raid on Liverpool. To my knowledge only one or two bombs fell on the town, probably off target ones.
Next thing I remember was celebrating V-E day in the streets of Ormskirk.
I was eventually re-united with my father in 1947 when he left the Admirality and took a posting with the civil service in Liverpool.

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